Movie Thoughts: Mia and the White Lion (2018)

• Released: 2 August 2018
• Directed by: Gilles de Maistre
• Running time: 1 h 38 min
• Rating 3.5/5

Synopsis

A girl who lives on a lion farm in South Africa bonds with a white lion named Charlie and must protect him against being sold for hunting purposes, by bringing him to a special reserve.

My Thoughts

I like my "person bonds with a wild animals"- type of movies. That said, often they give people the wrong idea about how wild animals should be treated. Cute as they might be, wild animals are not pets. So whenever a movie like this comes out that constantly has the girl and her lion in the house and her cuddling and playing with him I am a bit careful.

I like the movie, do not get me wrong. It's a solid film with solid characters. Mia is a bit of a spoiled brat but I still really liked her, especially with how determined she was to save Charlie. Her bond with the cub felt genuine, too, probably because the real actress bonded with the lion playing Charlie (Thor) as well. 

However, I am firmly of the belief that some CGI should've been used for the lions in this. With the amount of interactions between Mia and Charlie (a full grown two year old lion throughout the last third), it made me really uncomfortable to see a real animal used here, which is dangerous, not beneficial to the lion's development and just not needed. This movie came out in 2018, they had CGI. We don't have to and shouldn't be exploiting real wild animals if it can be helped. Heck, they still could've used real lions for the scenes where the animals don't interact with human beings.

Also, that aside, the movie is too white. It takes place in South Africa yet there's only one named character of color and she's simply the butt of a bunch of jokes. Just feels off.

Overall this is a good movie that is not afraid to touch on the topic of canned hunting. It just leaves some stuff to be desired when it comes to the handling of the animals.